Maybe it was only a matter of time before people called for art to be taken down for the sake of political correctness.

That is the world we live in.

The more we hear about abuse and sexual impropriety, the more we try to shield our innocent eyes from all things off-colour.

And so, a petition has been started, calling for the New York Met to replace Thérèse Dreaming by Balthasar Klossowski – which shows girl with her underwear visible.

Yep, people want a canvas painted in 1938 to be replaced because the kid featured is sitting in what might be interpreted as a sexual pose.

‘Given the current climate around sexual assault and allegations that become more public each day, in showcasing this work for the masses, The Met is romanticizing voyeurism and the objectification of children,’ the petition says.

The Met, however, disagrees and has refused to remove the offending painting. Thank God.

Now don’t get me wrong, some of these artists were real pervs. They painted underage girls all the time and no doubt did a damn sight more besides.

But you cannot go around apply 2017 standards to works painted 80 years ago and more. The world is a completely different place.

By that logic, we’d get rid of about 80% of the Louvre’s collection. Every Degas, Modigliani, Schiele would be removed and stored in a special lockup for paedos, weirdos and perverts.

Some of the world’s most amazing portraits would be taken away. Some of the greatest explorations of colour, form, life would be hidden.

Does this mean that we should celebrate these taboo subjects? Does having these canvases hang in a gallery support the idea of child sex abuse or voyeurism? Absolutely not. One can appreciate art without supporting the subject. It’s all about context.

Of course, some might argue that if we allow these kinds of artworks to stick around in pride of place at museums and galleries, then works by serial attackers like Harvey Weinstein should continue to be appreciated.

When I put this matter to a fellow Art History graduate, they said that ‘anything that perpetuates rape culture should be a “no”. Right now we need vigilance’. For them, that applies to old paintings.

‘Art History is full of images of rape, bestiality, child murder and lord knows what else,’ Professor Michael White, Head of History of Art at the University of York, tells Metro.co.uk.

‘The main question is how this material is interpreted. Simply taking it off the walls is not really addressing the problem of how attitudes that create the likes of Harvey Weinstein are formed.

‘Are we going to censor every film in which a woman is assaulted or objectified, or every book? I don’t think so. What is required is the proper framing of this material. We’ve got to be able to understand how these images work and how they express social values or not.’

A similar Balthus painting was used for many years on the cover of the Penguin Classic edition of Nabakov’s Lolita. And we all know what Lolita is about (a old dude falling in love with his step-daughter).

(Picture: Amazon)

Michael says that a better option than removing paintings would be to teach people how these kinds of images work.

‘The world is increasingly visual but the kind of training we offer in understanding images is way behind the teaching of textual analysis. Nobody is calling for books to banned are they? If we take down Balthus, we should ban Lolita. Is anyone calling for that?

‘More Art History, I say!’

They say that those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

One wonders if we were to censor our cultural history, whether we’d leave ourselves vulnerable to that kind of thing happening again.

The more you push behaviour underground, the more people kind of lust after it.

Child pornography is wrong (obviously) but treating everyone like a victim of sexual assault out to be triggered by an incident of historic abuse (for want of a better word) doesn’t seem like the right approach.

Society has changed out of all recognition since 1938 when Balthus painted Thérèse. We need these kinds of images to stay around so we can discuss the issues they throw up and understand culture.

We shouldn’t shy away from the fact that back in the day, grown men abused kids or that the majority of artist models were sex workers. We shouldn’t ignore the roles women were forced to play to survive in a far more brutal society.

If we erase all evidence that this was the way society was, will that make today’s society any safer?

Museums present all sorts of hideous artefacts related to despicable behaviour in an educational way. Our shelves would be empty if we couldn’t show controversial stuff! But the controversy lies in modern context, so actually opens up really interesting discussion.

Degas, After the Bath, Woman Drying her Neck. 1898 (Picture: Getty)

Some suggest putting trigger warnings in galleries.

Again, I’d argue that this only helps to perpetuate a culture of victimhood. Galleries should be raw, they should incite emotion – anger, joy, despair, elation. That is what art is. It is not the same as the graphic rape scenes in films where women are brutalised and destroyed for five minutes on a screen – providing both inspiration to potential abusers and hellish reminders to those who have lived through it.

As for today’s creative abusers, they should be allowed to continue producing their ‘art’.

But we don’t have to buy it.

Art (in any form) can exist and has a right to exist independently of the artist – it doesn’t have to be put on a pedestal.

You don’t have to buy Chris Brown’s albums. You don’t have to stream Louis CK’s ‘comedy’.

Both artists make big bucks from their work so there is obviously a load of people who love what they do.

And their art is good…but is it going to change the world in the same way as Degas and Toulouse-Lautrec transformed the way we used and saw colour? In 200 years, are our great-great-grandchildren going to be studying Chris Brown’s ‘Loyal’ in music classes the way we look at Saint-Saens or Benjamin Britten (both of whom are rumoured to have been paedophiles)?

Who knows.

To be clear, any kind of sexual abuse is awful and should be condemned.